Geography: North West, Lancashire. Parts of Wyre and Lancaster council areas.

Main population centres: Lancaster, Fleetwood.

Profile: A rather forced pairing, Lancaster is the historic county town of Lancashire, long associated with the monarchy and now very much a university town (Lancaster University is in a campus to the south of the city, and unusually has a council ward consisting solely of the university - meaning it has the lowest average age of any ward in the country and a permanent population of almost zero!). To the east of Lancaster the seat stretches up into the desolate moorlands of the Forest of Bowland, to the west into the marshy Over Wyre area to the south of Morecambe Bay. There is no road link to Fleetwood inside the seat, one would have to drive south and through Blackpool, but there is a seasonal ferry link across the mouth of the river Wyre. Fleetwood meanwhile is a far more compact and urban area on the peninsula to the north of Blackpool, a fishing and tourist town that has suffered much deprivation with the decline of the fishing industry.

Politics: The current seat was created for the 2010 election, previously Lancaster had been paired with Wyre making for a relatively easy Conservative gain at the 2005 election. The new seat was much more challening for the Tories, Fleetwood is Labour voting and there is much Labour (and Green party) strength in Lancaster. In the event the Conservatives managed to win the seat by only the narrowest of margins in 2010 and lost it to Labour in 2015.

Current MP

CAT SMITH (Labour) Born Barrow in Furness. Educated at Lancaster University. Former campaigns and policy officer for British Association of Social Workers. Contested Wyre and Preston North 2010. First elected as MP for Lancaster & Fleetwood in 2015.

Past Results

2010

Con:

15404 (36%)

Lab:

15071 (35%)

LDem:

8167 (19%)

GRN:

1888 (4%)

Oth:

2171 (5%)

MAJ:

333 (1%)

2005*

Con:

22266 (43%)

Lab:

18095 (35%)

LDem:

8453 (16%)

GRN:

2278 (4%)

Oth:

969 (2%)

MAJ:

4171 (8%)

2001

Con:

22075 (42%)

Lab:

22556 (43%)

LDem:

5383 (10%)

GRN:

1595 (3%)

Oth:

741 (1%)

MAJ:

481 (1%)

1997

Con:

23878 (41%)

Lab:

25173 (43%)

LDem:

6802 (12%)

Oth:

1493 (3%)

MAJ:

1295 (2%)

*There were boundary changes after 2005, name changed from Lancaster & Wyre

Demographics

2015 Candidates

ERIC OLLERENSHAW (Conservative) Born 1950, Ashton-under-Lyme. Educated at LSE. History teacher. Member of the ILEA 1986-1990, Hackney councillor from 1990, Joint leader of Hackney council 2000-2001. London Assembly list member 2000-2004.Contested Heywood and Middleton 1992. MP for Lancaster & Fleetwood 2010 to 2015. Awarded the OBE for public service in 1990.

CAT SMITH (Labour) Born Barrow in Furness. Educated at Lancaster University. Campaigns and Policy officer for British Association of Social Workers. Contested Wyre and Preston North 2010.

It will be fascinating to see how much coverage this gets, many have pointed out that considering the seriousness of the allegations being laid on he Tory party the media interest (bar Channel 4) has been very low.

Now that a Lab MP is being roped in, and a Corbynite one at that, it will be interesting to see if the media suddenly decide the story worth reporting…

I think it was always likely that, if there has indeed been widespread breaching of the rules, it wouldn’t be limited to one party. In elections small margins in marginal seats matter and if they have the resources and think they will get away with it bending the rules is always going to be very tempting. In reality I expect there is a tendency to spend the money first and then worry about how to account for it later.

Of course, if anything becomes of these investigations (relatively unlikely, I think, though I’m not an expert in these matters) it will be the Tories who are damaged most – simply because they won most of their target seats last year whilst Labour lost almost all of theirs.

“Nor the Lib Dems, who have been doing the most complaining in the first place (e.g. Adrian Sanders and now Tessa Munt)”

Unless I’ve missed something Sanders seems to be about the most high-profile Lib Dem to be making a fuss of this, kinda surprising given the huge number of seats they lost. Is the comparative silence from more senior figures in the party an admission that the yellows aren’t entirely innocent either?

NB These accusations are so far not quite the same as those being levelled at the Tories. The non-Tory cases seem to be just about using transport accounted for nationally, whilst the Tory cases were also about providing accommodation to the people travelling. I’m not sure whether the other parties did bussing in whole teams of activists to spend multiple days in marginal seats.

Lancs Observer
Yes it was reported, after weeks of the issue being publically known. Also there’s been a constant slew of updates on the story (more police forces opening investigations, more Tory MP’s being roped in, extension of the investigative period etc) but the BBC didn’t report any of this yet decided to report a single Lab MP being investigated. Also I think you’ll probably find (though I stand corrected if wrong) that BBC news North West or any of the other regional news channels didn’t make it their main story like they have done with Cat Smith.

MikeinSDevon – I think it’s probably more a LD view that if re fought they’d struggle to win hardly any of them, so why bother.

Incidentally, I got around to watching the Queen’s Speech and I see Tim Farron walked on his own from the Commons to the Lords. I realise most Lab & Tory MPs hate the LDs and the Alliance lost their sole MP but this was bad form.

Maybe in Lancaster but he would go disproportionately badly in Fleetwood and the rural areas of this seat. As I have said many times before Corbyn is a net electoral liability except in hipster type inner city seats with large Green votes like Hackney South and Shoreditch, Bristol West, Liverpool Riverside etc. unfortunately Labour hold all these seats except Brighton Pavilion…

Rivers I’m not 100% sure that’s true the way things are going we could well be heading for a situation where Labour does about as well in rural, picturesque villages and farming communities as UKIP do in inner London i.e. sub 5%.

“I’m not 100% sure that’s true the way things are going we could well be heading for a situation where Labour does about as well in rural, picturesque villages and farming communities as UKIP do in inner London i.e. sub 5%”

I would profoundly disagree, what little vote Lab gets in such paces is likely extremely robust. These peeps have voted Lab when they have literally been making no overtures towards them, most of the issues Lab raise are not relevant to the lives of people who live in such communities. The fact that a small amount of these people proceed to vote Lab anyway demonstrates they are ideologically very sympathetic to Labs message and vote for it regardless of what effect it has on them. Corbyn will be no more damaging to these people than any other Lab leader. Think of it the same way as the Tory vote in the deprived Liverpool wards, it really cant sink any lower, those who still vote for them probably always will.

In a sense this seat will be the acid test of the Corbyn led Labour party.

Cat Smith has been one of his most loyal and prominent supporters. So no issues about not supporting the leadership here. She may also benefit from the usual first term incumbency boost.

But will all the disengaged voters who have stopped voting for Labour return to it now there is a real left wing alternative, as Corbyn supporters claim? Its always been a narrative I have been deeply sceptical of. We seem to have entered an era where, however close the political contest is, a third of the electorate do not vote. And I feel that it is easier to persuade of someone who does vote regularly to alter their vote than persuade someone who has got out of the habit to start voting again.

Lancaster itself looks like an area where the approach might work : the rest of the seat far less so. On present polling this is a clear Conservative gain, though the margin of victory may be less than other equally marginal seats.

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